


even when you're lost

by goseaward



Category: BBC Radio 1 RPF, One Direction (Band)
Genre: Future Fic, M/M, Pining
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-11
Updated: 2015-10-11
Packaged: 2018-04-25 22:59:37
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 17,230
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4979926
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/goseaward/pseuds/goseaward
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"I thought I might come for a visit," Nick said.  "Like.  In two weeks.  If you're around."</p>
<p>"Yeah, I'll be here.  But you're early."</p>
<p>"What?"</p>
<p>"You come to visit once every year and a half," Harry said.  "Haven't you been doing that on purpose?"</p>
            </blockquote>





	even when you're lost

**Author's Note:**

> With thanks to the tremendous eloiserummaging for the beta. Any remaining mistakes are my own.

"Hiya, Harry Styles."

"Hi," Harry said. Nick's Northern vowels on the phone were a nice little bit of England whilst Harry was lying in the California sunshine. "What's up?"

"I thought I might come for a visit," Nick said. "Like. In two weeks. If you're around."

"Yeah, I'll be here. But you're nine months early."

"What?"

"You come to visit once every year and a half," Harry said. "Haven't you been doing that on purpose?"

"I can't have been coming long enough to set a pattern."

"Spring 2015, fall 2016, um...spring 2018, fall 2019. Once you'd done it twice, I started paying attention." That wasn't really why, or it wasn't only why, anyway. But that wasn't something Harry wanted to discuss.

Nick laughed. "Weird. Soz for the short notice, though. I was supposed to go away with David, but he's got a last-minute project at work he can't get out of, and since I'd already convinced the dragons who run BBC2 to give be the time off, I thought I'd make my pilgrimage to the land of smoothies and waxing instead."

"Yeah, of course. There's always a room for you here."

A pause almost long enough to be awkward, even given the transcontinental delay, and then Nick said, "Great! I'll send the flight details to your PA when I've got 'em." 

Harry breathed a sigh of relief—he'd skirted close to the edge, there, almost given his hand away, as if Nick didn't already know what cards he held. He stretched out on his lounger. "Great. What do you want to do when you're here?"

"Waxing and smoothies, didn't I say?" 

Harry loved the little teasing note in Nick's voice when he said stuff like that. It made him feel all safe and wrapped up in Nick's affection, like nothing he said was so weird that Nick would think any less of him. "You'll have to do the waxing on your own, I've sworn it off."

"Ah, so there's a yeti Harry Styles in my future. Fantastic!"

"Shut up," Harry said. He glanced around the patio—he'd have to do some rearranging before Nick got here; he hadn't moved all the spare chairs after his last party, and two people with twenty chairs would seem weird. "Shopping trip, yeah?"

"Ooooh, yes. Um—I'll have to have couple of studio meetings whilst I'm there, I'll give you those dates too." 

"Yep."

"And a spa day, obviously, for the waxing," Nick said.

"And then the rest of the time we sit around and watch TV like normal?"

"TV? _TV_? Oh no, you've gone native. You've still got tea in, right? You didn't go dump it all in the ocean?"

Harry laughed. "Telly, then, if it means that much to you."

"That's better." 

"And I'll go buy some replacement tea."

Nick squawked indignantly, and Harry laughed harder. 

"I wonder what it would be like swimming in an entire poolful of tea," Harry said, looking over his own pool. "D'you think that would work like a fake tan? Tea-stained skin?"

"Please don't try it," Nick said.

"No, I'm good." Harry paused. "Might work as a business, though. Start our own spa. 'Healthy skin treatments, the newest idea from London.'"

"That's brilliant. Don't do it."

"Right. This is why you need to visit, to keep me on the right path."

"If you're relying on me, I think you're doomed. Soz."

"All your godchildren have turned out all right."

"Oh, that's all down to their parents. I'm a terrible influence," Nick said, and launched into a story about what Arlo had done at school that week. Harry settled in to listen to Nick's stories. He loved them, and he'd get to hear them in person again soon.

Frankly, that made him feel warmer than the California sunshine.

 

* * *

 

Before Harry knew it, it was the Saturday of Nick's arrival and he was hopping in the back of a black SUV and heading to the airport. Down through the canyon and into LA proper, his beloved city sliding past dimmed by the tinted windows. And Nick, already smiling before he hopped into the car himself, expecting Harry to be there: their little tradition. "Hi!" Harry said as Nick half-sat half-fell onto the seat. 

Nick dropped his bag and then slid over to gather Harry up in a big hug and smack a kiss on his cheek. "Hello," he said. "I am so tired. I might fall asleep right here on your shoulder."

"Feel free," Harry said, warm and pleased all over. It was like the sun had come out from behind a cloud, having Nick in person again, everything full-colour and glittering. "Didn't you sleep on the plane?" 

"Not enough." That was unusual—Nick didn't usually have trouble sleeping on planes, though getting him over jetlag was another matter. "There was this dog across the aisle, in a little carrier, and I spent like half the trip making faces at him."

Harry patted Nick on the shoulder. He was still sitting close, half in the middle seat rather than all the way back in his own place. "You should've brought Pig."

"Mmm, there are customs regulations and thingies. File this form with this office, and you can only come into, like, two airports in the entire country—and this is a big country, in case you hadn't noticed—"

"I had," Harry said.

"—well, too much hassle on short notice. She's with Aimee and Ian for the week."

He can picture them, Aimee and Ian and their children running Pig around the garden. "She's going to be exhausted when you get her back."

"I'll be exhausted too. We can lay in the bed together like big tired lumps." Nick grinned.

"Typical Grimshaw party household," Harry said. "You're letting her up on the bed now? _David's_ letting her up on the bed?"

Nick's eyebrows went up: _caught him_ , Harry thought. Not that he'd ever kept Pig out of the bed, but apparently he'd stopped even pretending. "She's an aged dog. Six years, that's forty-two in human years, right?" he said defensively. "I let her rest her achin' bones."

Harry smiled at him "My mum's older than that. Don't let her hear you call her aged."

"Naw, never. Your mum's smokin'."

"Ew," Harry said, and Nick laughed and put a hand on Harry's shoulder. They'd always been flirty and touchy-feely like that; Harry didn't know when it changed over into what it was now for him. But he wouldn't stop himself, even if it hurt. And he knew Nick would stop him before he crossed any kind of line—Nick was the one in a relationship, he knew better where the boundaries were. Harry leaned forward and Nick slid his hand down to rub the back of his shoulder briskly. "Are you too tired for frozen yogurt?" Harry said, pressing into the touch.

"I'm never too tired for froyo," Nick said, pulling the vowels out in an exaggerated American accent. He yawned; Harry laughed, not sure if it was put on or if he was actually that tired. "Are we going back to yours first?"

"I thought we'd go right now since we're down here already. Is that okay?"

"Yes, if you don't mind me smelling like airplanes and not enough sleep. Eugh, foul."

Harry waved a hand at him. "Better than you usually smell."

Nick gave him a big, exaggerated frown, and Harry laughed, like he always did. It didn't matter how long they spent apart, it was always like this when they got back together: as if the time and distance between them didn't exist, and it was the Nick and Harry show, special edition, just for them. He could never get enough of the feeling.

 

* * *

 

Harry licked his spoon extra-filthily, just because he could. Nick's mouth twisted up like he was trying to stop himself from laughing. Not exactly the reaction Harry was going for, but pleasing nonetheless. He had raspberry yogurt, which was pink; if it were white he could have made it look truly pornographic.

Nick had chocolate with Oreo bits and sprinkles, because, he'd declared, he was on holiday and the calories didn't count. Harry didn't care one way or another about Nick's diet, but he liked watching Nick enjoy himself, so he might have encouraged the sprinkles. He didn't regret it even when Nick made a seafood joke and then opened his mouth to show Harry a confetti of sprinkles embedded in melting chocolate yogurt. (Well, he regretted it a little, because he wanted to kiss the yogurt out of Nick's mouth. But that was a commentary on Harry's state of mind, not the sprinkles per se.)

"As good as you remember it?" Harry said.

Nick moaned around his spoon. Or maybe it was supposed to be words. Harry chose to believe it was moaning, because that was more fun for him.

"Are we about to reenact When Harry Met Sally?"

Nick swallowed. "I don't think we need any more rumours about your sexual prowess, do we?"

"We might," Harry said. "It's a good rumour."

"Mmm. Harry Styles: Psychic Orgasm-Inducer. Sounds good to me."

"That's my superhero name, then?" Harry was smiling like he was flirting, and he knew it. He didn't stop.

Nick made a dubious noise. "I think your superhero name should have summat to do with your hair."

"That's a better power than psychic orgasms?"

"I mean, it's necessary for the psychic orgasms," Nick said. "Amplifies the signal." He made a gesture next to his ear, a throwing motion with his fingers, as if demonstrating brain wave transfer.

Harry took another bite of the yogurt and cleaned his spoon really, really carefully with his tongue. 

"Cameraphone off the port bow," Nick said.

Harry blinked. "Do you know what that means?"

"Um. Behind you?"

"Girl in the green jumper?"

Nick looked surprised for a moment, then smiled ruefully. "Sorry, I always forget how often that happens to you."

"It's all right. Worth it."

Nick nodded. "I'm just sayin', you might want to fellate that spoon a little less."

"Eh, she can't see it." He licked from the handle all the way across the bowl, slowly, maintaining eye contact with Nick the whole time. Nick just raised his eyebrows. "What was the point of coming out if I can't make inappropriate gestures in public with food whilst dining with a gentleman friend?"

"Sex in public toilets, also a perk," Nick said. 

"You can do that if you're straight too. Or closeted." Harry took another bite of his yogurt and let it melt on his tongue.

"Harder, though. I mean, I assume it's harder, I've been out for years and all my straight sex happened in beds."

Harry swallowed. "Very romantic."

"Yeah. 'I think I'm gay, fancy a shag just to make sure?'"

"I should have used that," Harry said. "Works either way."

"I think 'I'm in One Direction' worked pretty well," Nick said. He had that little self-deprecating twist to his mouth again, like he was making fun of himself for falling for it, too. And he had, at first, Harry thought. They'd have gotten along no matter what, but Harry's sure it helped that he was a musician in a group that Nick at least sort of liked.

"Before that, though."

"And how old were you then? Ten?"

Harry almost said 'no.' "I mean, I was ten before One Direction. At some point."

Nick laughed again.

Harry took another few mouthfuls of his yogurt, and Nick matched him bite for bite. He had a little smudge of chocolate coming off his top lip like winged eyeliner, but Harry couldn't figure out how to get it off without crossing a line. He'd tell him before they left, he supposed. Nick always liked looking perfect—not that Harry didn't—wait.

"Your hair makes a better antenna than mine," Harry said accusingly.

Nick blinked at him. "What?"

"It's all, like, upright. Not limp noodles."

"Limp curly noodles," Nick said. "Uh. I guess so, but I don't have any psychic powers for it to amplify."

"D'you think it amplifies the incoming signals?" Harry said.

"Could do," Nick said. He didn't add anything about orgasms, though, so Harry guessed they were done with the flirting for now. He finished his yogurt and took a couple of spoonfuls of Nick's, too, when Nick looked like he was slowing down. 

It was delicious.

 

* * *

 

"And she's got a new album coming out soon," Nick said, still chatting as Harry unlocked the door to his house. He'd keep going until he crashed, Harry knew: he kept himself awake by talking.

"You'll have to get me a copy." Collette's albums were always interesting, if not to Harry's taste. They usually got about three listens before Harry filed them away in his CD cabinet.

Nick took his sunglasses off and tucked them in his bag as they walked into the dimly-lit entry. "You could ask her yourself," he said. He looked so tired. Harry was glad he'd have a chance to pamper Nick, make him stop working so hard. He'd never learned how to relax, had Nick. Go go go until he wore himself out and then couldn't do anything for days, ill or exhausted, hating every second. That was something One Direction had done for Harry: taught him how to carve out breaks in the middle of madness whenever he could. If success had waited, he wondered if he'd have ended up like Nick, constantly half-convinced it was all about to be taken away from him.

"But you talk to her all the time," Harry said.

"Exactly! She'd love to hear from you. She gets enough of my rambling as it is." Nick leaned his head towards the first floor. "The usual?"

"Yeah."

Harry trailed behind Nick up the stairs, half listening to updates on various friends of Nick's and his still-new chat show and his so-far failed attempts to break into the American telly market, half watching to make sure Nick wasn't about to collapse from exhaustion. They made it to his usual bedroom without incident, at least. Nick dropped his bags on the floor, fell onto the bed, and then it was like somebody had flipped his switch: he went from mile-a-minute gossip to a quiet groan followed by silence. 

Harry sat down on a corner of the bed. "How's being horizontal?" he said, patting Nick's ankle.

Nick groaned again. "Can I move in here and never leave?" 

Harry's heart hammered at a sudden pitch. He knew Nick didn't mean it that way, but he couldn't help picturing it. Boyfriend, boyfriend, he's got a boyfriend, Harry reminded himself. He usually tried not to think about it, and Nick usually didn't bring it up. "I think you'd get bored," he said, lightly.

"Don't care. It would be a good boredom. Sleepy."

"You can nap if you want. I dunno if it's good for the jet lag." 

"Don't care," Nick said again. "Wake me up in a couple of hours?"

"Okay." Harry pulled Nick's shoes off and Nick muttered into the pillow, already half-asleep. Harry pulled up the quilt from the foot of the bed and then retreated to the door, where he stopped for a moment to observe. Nick looked so good in Harry's space, filling up the whole house somehow with his presence. He always fit in here. Of course, they had similar decorating instincts, and being in Nick's flat so much had made them even closer, but it was more than that. LA was home, but Nick was too. Harry was never as happy as he was when he could have both of them together.

 

* * *

 

Nick appeared the following morning halfway through Harry's yoga session, eyes half-shut and hair a terror. Pearl didn't even blink, just straightened Harry's elbows for his boat pose and then said, "Would you like to join us?"

"Not today, thanks," Nick said. His voice was all scratchy, and he had a mug of what was undoubtedly coffee in one hand. He was wearing boxers beneath a silk dressing gown that formerly belonged to Aimee and which, at this point, Harry guessed she actively didn't want back. It hurt to look at him, Harry wanted him so much.

Pearl shifted into the lotus pose and Harry followed; when he looked back Nick had settled onto the stairs leading into the house and was sipping his coffee. Harry'd heard him in the middle of the night, moving about. He was the worst about shifting time zones if he didn't have work to keep him occupied. Harry wanted to eat him alive basically all of the time, but right now he also wanted to cover him with a blanket and coddle him all morning as if he were poorly. 

Instead, he made sure to do his next downward-facing dog so that his arse was pointing at Nick. He knew Nick would appreciate the show, whether or not he wanted to get a piece of it himself.

Harry did his best to stay mindful as they worked through more poses. Yoga was always calming for him, letting him sink into the working of his muscles and away from the thoughts in his head. He liked the end results too, being balanced and flexible as well as strong, sexy in his body as much as in his mind. Not a bad mood to be in for the day, at that. Nick stayed through the whole session, somewhat to Harry's surprise: when he didn't join in he usually got bored and drifted off somewhere, but he was still perched on the steps sipping his coffee when Harry finally stood up and bid Pearl goodbye. She knew the way out, so Harry came over and hopped up next to Nick. "Enjoying the show?" he said.

Nick rolled his eyes, but he was smiling, too. He'd always been endeared by Harry's exhibitionism, a nice middle ground between lascivious and embarrassed that Harry very much appreciated. "Can you put your ankles behind your neck yet?"

"No," Harry said. Not that he hadn't tried. Not that a couple of adventurous guys hadn't got him close, in fact.

"Pity. That'd look good on Tinder."

"I don't use Tinder," Harry said.

Nick nodded and took a sip of his coffee.

"Do you want some breakfast?"

"Could do," Nick said. He put the coffee down and held out his arms like he couldn't stand up on his own, so Harry stood and then hauled Nick up after. One of these days he'd pick him up like a baby. 

Harry usually did smoothies in the morning, but Nick was here so he threw some bread in the toaster too. They could do the full American pancake breakfast later in the week when Nick was more awake to appreciate it. As it was, Nick was staring half-asleep at the wall. He only roused when Harry set the plate of toast and the glass of green smoothie in front of him. "Ta," he said, grabbing for the toast. "Do I want to know what's in the smoothie?"

"The usual," Harry said. He took a big sip of his. 

Nick shook his head, chewing on the toast. "You say that like I remember," he said.

"Too bad, now you'll never know."

Nick took a sip, then screwed up his face like a baby tasting lemon for the first time. "At least it wakes you up." Harry knew it was all for show—he'd seen the photos of Nick drinking them on his own.

After a few minutes of companionable silence, Harry said, "Are you still up for shopping today?"

Instantly Nick brightened. "Yes!" he said. "When do we start?"

"Afternoon? We can do lunch first, but it'll have to be early. Too many tourists if we wait."

"No, that's fine." Nick eyed the half-full glass of smoothie. His loss if he didn't want to finish it. "Wine me and dine me, Styles, that's what you're here for."

"Yeah, I'll make a reservation." Gosh, toast was delicious. "We'll probably have to leave around eleven. Is that enough time for your morning routine?"

"Is that enough time," Nick scoffed, then looked at the clock. "Actually—"

Harry grinned. "Go on with you, then."

Nick stuffed the last crust in his mouth, then walked upstairs, ruffling Harry's hair before he went. Better than toast, that.

 

* * *

 

Nick came out of the dressing room and struck a pose he probably stole from Mossy. "What do you think?" 

"I have that one," Harry said.

Nick twirled around and stared in the mirror, plucking at the shoulders of the shirt. "It's nice, this. I look very, like. Narrow."

Harry bit his lip to keep from smiling. "Narrow."

"That's a positive." Nick flapped his hands at Harry in his usual 'shut up, you' gesture. 

"Maybe in red?" Harry said. "You don't wear red very much. I like it on you." The sales attendant slipped off discreetly in the periphery of Harry's vision.

"I don't know, this blue is very—oh, he already left," Nick said, sounding surprised. "Sneaky."

"We have to stay one step ahead of you," Harry said. "Who knows what mad thing you're going to ask for next."

Nick nodded. "I like to take full advantage of my diva opportunities." He posed a few more times in the mirror. 

Harry did his best not to ogle; he couldn't help it sometimes, though. His eyes slipped down to Nick's arse, but then he spotted the tag. "Oh, the jeans, too?" Harry said.

"So they don't look that different from the ones I was wearing?" 

"Er, no."

"Maybe not, then." The sales attendant came back with the same shirt in red, and Nick went into the dressing room to change. He came out and made another little twirl in the mirror, raising his eyebrows at Harry, and then said, "I think I like the blue better."

"Yeah," Harry said reluctantly. It was true, it did look better on him, as much as Harry would have liked to have been right.

Nick preened. "See, this is what happens when you contradict me. You end up lookin' silly."

Harry's phone vibrated in his hand. "Sure," he said, unlocking it and reading the text. "Oh—there's a beach party on Wednesday. One of Jeff's friends has a house on the coast. Should we go?"

"I've meetings on Wednesday, I think." Nick disappeared back inside the dressing room. 

"At night?"

"Who has a beach party at night?" he said indignantly.

"Cookout, romantic nighttime walks..."

"Cookout. Will this be genuine American barbeque, or some of that weird health stuff?"

"Genuine barbeque."

"Yeah, all right." Nick opened the door in a clingy, tight-fitting black t-shirt with a silver design on the front and across one sleeve. He laughed when he saw Harry's face and said, "So I'm buying this one too, yeah?"

"Yeah."

"Wicked." He closed the door again.

Most of the time Harry thought Nick knew how Harry felt about him, but times like this he wasn't sure. Nick wasn't the kind of person to make fun of Harry's attraction if he thought it was real. Maybe Harry was overthinking things. They'd always flirted like this. For Harry there was the moment when things changed, but it was possible Nick hadn't felt that—possible that Nick thought the relationship was the same as it had always been. Either way, Harry's feelings weren't reciprocated. He knew that.

It was harder, this visit, to pretend that this was all just friendly flirting. Harry didn't know why. Maybe he was getting older. Maybe he was almost done with this. Maybe sometime Nick would visit and Harry wouldn't be overwhelmed with how he wished things were different.

Nick poked his head out again in something lime green and terrifying. He dissolved into giggles when he saw Harry's face. "No," Harry said firmly whilst Nick slouched against the door frame. "That is an abomination."

"I dunno, I quite like it," Nick said, his sincerity ruined by the fact that he was still grinning. "Green looks good on the telly."

"It doesn't if you blind your audience."

"So I should buy it, then?" He roared with laughter at Harry's expression and shut the door. Harry could hear him snickering behind it.

"I'm going to look at the watches. Shout if you need me," Harry said. Nick made an acknowledging noise.

Harry texted Jeff back with their acceptance, then wandered over to the jewelry display. He picked up one of the necklaces Nick had been looking at earlier and brought it over to the register to buy whilst Nick was occupied. The necklace looked good on Nick and would make a nice gift. Harry liked buying presents for Nick, liked all the little ways he could take care of him. He'd always wanted those adult relationship things, no matter how much the people who did them moaned about it. Taking care of someone. Being reliable for them. Knowing all the little details they liked, protecting them, supporting them, being settled and comfortable with them.

Well, he did all that for Nick anyway. He just wished he could do it and all the romance besides.

 

* * *

 

On the way into the venue, Nick stopped to take a few photos of some of the posters from past concerts displayed on the hallway walls, which Harry supposed was a sign of approval. Harry liked this place; he got recognized as much as anywhere, but enthusiasm would have been a betrayal of the general ironic detachment that the regulars favored, so mostly he didn't get bothered. And they had good music too, of course, but he appreciated that he could sit in the audience instead of hiding backstage.

Harry bought the first round whilst Nick chose a table near the bar. Harry scooted the chair around so they were sitting next to each other facing the stage; if it had the side effect of putting him touching distance from Nick, that was merely happy coincidence.

Looking out at the crowd beginning to gather at the foot of the stage, Nick said, "Once upon a time I would have been right in there, mixing it up." He sighed and took a big slurp of his drink through the straw. "Now I'm all old and decrepit. I'd probably break something."

"I saw video of you right up front dancing to Florrie at Glasto last year."

Nick put his hand over Harry's face. "Shush. That was ages ago. I was in the first half of my thirties and still had the bright glow of youth."

Harry could lick Nick's hand right now, or kiss it. He didn't do either. "I'm not down front either, and I'm ten years younger than you."

"Oi, is that supposed to be _helpful_?" Nick said. He took his hand away from Harry's face. "Please, tell me more about how old I am compared to you." He didn't look mad, at least, just amused.

"I was trying to sympathize."

Nick shook his head and took another sip of his drink. Harry matched him with his beer and stretched his legs out. It was nice, hanging out like this at a show. He hoped Nick would like the band—Harry'd heard a couple of bootlegs that his drummer Kim lent him, and they seemed like Nick's type, heavy on the hip-hop influences. 

"This was a good day," Nick said a few minutes later. "You got all bendy in the morning like you like, then I got to buy lots of ridiculous shirts which I like, and now we've a show."

"And tomorrow we can sit around on the sofa all day like the grandfathers we secretly are."

"Yeah, that too." Nick flashed a grin at him. "I expect the very best of terrible American telly, just so you know."

Harry started drawing little designs into the condensation on his beer bottle. Americans liked their beer really cold, not just cool, and it had taken Harry some getting used to. He considered being more pornographic about it, but that wasn't how he was feeling tonight. More...couple-y, less irresistible shag monster, although he always felt a little like that too. 

The openers came out, and Harry listened for a while before he got bored—they weren't terrible, but not to his taste. He glanced over at Nick right as Nick glanced at him, and they both smiled.

It would be a lot easier for Harry if it didn't already feel like they were dating when they hung out.

Nick leaned over and said into Harry's ear, "I think I should try some eyeliner like that. What d'you think?"

Harry stared at the raccoonlike eyes of the band's front man, then turned and looked at Nick again. "No," he said back. "You need something more delicate. Sparkly." He should look back at the band, he thought, but Nick was the better view.

"Princess tiara and fairy wings," Nick agreed.

"Dare you to wear that to your next meeting with Simon."

"He loves me. He wouldn't care." 

Fuck, Harry loved the little wrinkles at the corners of Nick's eyes when he smiled. Wanted to kiss them. 

"Maybe you should wear them, though," Nick said. "Or, no—he wouldn't be able to tell the difference."

"We wear the same clothes. You're just insulting yourself."

Nick looked happy. "Hmm, right. I guess I shouldn't have been such a good influence on you."

"I like to think the influence was mutual. 'Here's my chest hair, take a good look,'" Harry said, doing an impression of Nick and touching the open buttons on Nick's shirt.

"Eh. You have a good idea _once_ in a while." 

Harry had a feeling he was looking too much at Nick and not enough at the band—even if most of the people at the tables were talking to their companions and not listening, too. But he'd never known how to stop looking at Nick.

Luckily, he was saved from himself when Kim showed up after all: Harry hadn't been sure she'd come, but she and her sister and her boyfriend stopped to talk for a few minutes before heading to the floor, like the youthful enthusiasts they were. It was fun to introduce them to Nick and watch Nick charm them, like he did with everybody. Trying to be friends with Nick had been such a good decision. 

"She's nice," Nick said, once they'd gone. "You should have an entire band full of women."

"As much as possible, I try not to copy latter-day Jack White," Harry said.

"Dye your hair, powder your face to get that proper ghostly glow?"

Playing along, Harry frowned. "I said NOT."

"Hm, shame."

"And I like the rest of my band."

"Yeah, they're all right." Nick shifted in his chair so he was facing Harry, instead of half looking out at the audience. "How's that making music thing going these days?"

Harry thought for a moment about what he wanted to say. "Great. I really love the music I'm making now and the band's great. I'm enjoying writing for other people, too. But also for me, like, it's good to finally be doing some things on my own. You liked the new album, right?"

"What? Of course!" Nick said, looking scandalised.

"Good." Harry smiled down at his beer.

Nick laughed. "I don't remember you being that shameless about compliments."

"I like hearing you say it."

"Yes, Famous Popstar Harry Styles, you made some good music. Well done."

Harry grinned up at him. It really was very nice to hear it.

Watching Nick watch the band, it was hard for Harry not to feel like that seventeen-year-old again, wanting so hard to do something that would impress Nick, who was older and so cool and knew all these things and all these people that Harry wanted to know. That seventeen-year-old was feeling very pleased at the moment, because Nick seemed to like the music. 

Close to ten years on, the twenty-six-year-old was feeling fairly pleased as well. Not in an uncomplicated way, it was true; but sharing with Nick the thing they both loved best, it was hard to feel sad, even if Harry didn't have everything he wanted.

 

* * *

 

Nick didn't sit with his legs all tangled up with Harry's these days, but he still turned sideways and let his feet linger close when they were lounging on the sofa, so he could poke Harry with his toes when he wanted something. Or, at least, that's what Harry assumed he did it for, given that Nick was currently prodding Harry's thigh and saying, "Get me some water. I want some water. Please? You're closer to the water. Get me some water," and grinning all the while. He was doing that more this trip, being more manic, more attention-seeking. Harry wondered what had changed.

"You're so lazy," Harry said. He meant it to sound annoyed, but it was fond instead.

"I'm on holiday, and you're my host. Really, you're falling down on the job by failing to anticipate my every need."

Harry stood. "All right, jeez." He took Nick's glass and his own and refilled them. He sprawled closer to Nick when he came back, too. No harm in it.

They were watching a marathon of Real Housewives something or other. Nick had plentiful and very definite opinions on which of the housewives they liked. Listening to Nick talk was something Harry always enjoyed, regardless of whether he was interested in the actual subject matter. Granted, he didn't always listen that closely; he realized a few minutes later that Nick had transitioned into a story about Pig, so he started paying more attention.

Finally, Nick finished with, "So, when are you getting a dog?"

"What?" Harry said, blinking.

Nick smiled softly and poked Harry in the thigh with his toes again. "Do you some good, have somethin' else rattling around in this house."

Harry shook his head. "I travel too much. It doesn't seem fair to a dog if I'm leaving all the time."

"Can bring it with you, can't you?"

"Not international. Like you said about Pig." Harry slumped further down the couch, so Nick was prodding his hip instead of his thigh. "I dunno. That's really, like, permanent? And I don't feel settled yet. I love it here but there's stuff back home too. It doesn't feel right yet."

Nick made a harrumphy noise and looked around the room thoughtfully. "You seem pretty settled to me," he said at last. "Got a nice big house here, very you." He gestured at the art on the walls; the TV room had most of the pieces Harry liked that didn't fit the decor elsewhere, so Nick was right, it was an eclectic and very personal collection. "Big career, loads of money. Much better than I was doing at twenty-six."

"How long had you been doing the nighttime show then?" Harry said.

"Um, a couple of years, but—"

"Uh-huh."

"But I keep changing careers. You've been doing exactly what you wanted for years."

Harry patted his foot. "You're happy with your show, though, right?"

"Course." Nick slid down the sofa and started poking Harry's cheek with his toes. Harry batted him away and ended up holding onto Nick's foot, not exactly intentionally, but he didn't let it go, just shook it and looked at Nick sternly. Nick pulled his biggest, most innocent eyes. "But, dogs! You need a dog. You're going to travel for a long time, right? Mick Jagger's still performing and he's more beef jerky than man."

"Hey!" Harry said. "You know you would."

"So would you. Weird clone sex."

"Hot clone sex, you mean."

Nick laughed. Harry smiled, satisfied, and squeezed his foot until Nick kicked free.

"Mick's got somebody at home to look after his pets—um, does have any pets?"

"Dunno." Nick reached over for his phone, probably to Google it, and Harry started tickling his feet until he gave it up. This was his Nick time, thank you very much, no phones allowed. 

"So," Harry said sternly over the tail end of Nick's laughter, "when I'm not here there's nobody home. I don't want to own a pet by myself. You do a great job, but I don't think I would." And he had no idea when he'd have somebody else. He hadn't had a relationship longer than a couple of months in more than a year—he kept trying, but it was never the same as the idea of what a relationship with Nick could be. Silly, he knew, but true.

"Got it," Nick said. "No mentioning furry creatures around Harry Styles."

"Or fish," Harry said. "Unless we're eating them, then that's fine. Um, or lizards? Hairless cats."

Nick was staring at him with that expression he got sometimes, like Harry was an alien that Nick was inexplicably fond of. "All right, no mentioning animals of any kind."

"You could mention horses," Harry said. "Never really wanted a horse. Long faces."

"You've got a long face."

Harry raised his eyebrows. "So have you."

Nick neighed at him, which was even more unnecessary than most of the things Nick did. Also, it was a terrible neigh.

"Good for me that absolutely none of the rest of you is horselike, then," Harry said, and turned up the volume on the Real Housewives of Indeterminate Location. He got another foot to the face when Nick figured out the insult.

 

* * *

 

Nick lingered at Harry's elbow whilst he cooked until Harry shooed him out. Hard to whisk properly with someone right there, and it was more fun to have it all laid out and ready when Nick walked in: all the hard work hidden, just the meal and pleasant conversation and good wine from the wine cellar. It was fun to cook with Nick too—for all his whinging, Nick was very capable in the kitchen once pointed in the right direction—but the middle ground, a hovering ghost going "Whassat? Whatchadoin?" every few moments, didn't work so well for Harry. Or—he liked having Nick around, obviously. But the quality of prepared-meal Nick, surprised and pleased and complimentary, outweighed the quantity of Nick bugging Harry in the kitchen, as long as they weren't pressed for time.

Harry laid the table whilst the stew was cooking, then ran up the stairs to see what wine Nick wanted. A short burst of laughter told him Nick was on the phone. Harry was going to knock and ask about the wine when—

"I love you."

Shit. Shit. Harry turned around and ran back down the stairs, quiet as he could. Had Nick heard him? Fuck.

Of course—of course he did. Of course he loved the boyfriend he'd been with for a year. It shouldn't have felt like Harry had taken his carving knife and used it on his own chest. Especially when he heard another soft laugh from Nick's room before he managed to get downstairs. It was like being ripped in two, hearing Nick that happy but knowing he wasn't the cause of it.

Harry went back into the kitchen and rested his head against the cabinets. He had about two minutes before he would have to take the stew off the stove. He could take that long to recover. Right? Totally fine, for a man to have a small breakdown because his best friend was in love with somebody else.

The timer went before too long and Harry moved the stew to a cool burner and reached for the soup bowls. He ladled the stew out and put the bowls on the table, then spent a few minutes organizing the salad and the plates and the bowls into the right configuration. It was easy, mindless work, so Harry didn't have to think about anything if he didn't want to. He was just...making a perfect table for Nick to come eat at.

His brain wasn't cooperating with the not-thinking plan.

The worst thing was, Harry was nearly certain things could have been different. There was a night Harry liked to think of as the Last Sleepover, even though it wasn't the last. It was a few weeks into the official One Direction hiatus, and he'd been spending more time in London. Ostensibly that had been to prepare for his permanent move to Los Angeles, but in practice he'd spent most of it with Nick, getting deeper and deeper into whatever it was that lay between them. The last night he'd spent at Nick's place they'd shared a bed, as they sometimes did, and Harry woke up in the middle of the night lying on Nick's chest, his heart a drumbeat in Harry's ear, as steady then as Nick had always been for him. Normally Nick would have kicked him back to his side of the bed already, but for whatever reason he hadn't woken up, so Harry lay there and listened, the rhythmic throb of his pulse echoing through Harry's head, and Harry had been happier than he'd ever been. 

It wasn't really the last sleepover, but it was after that night that Nick started dating Michael for real, and then a succession of other men. In Harry's head, Michael had happened right after, even though he'd pulled up his old calendars on his phone during one particularly bad week and he knew that it was actually a month or two later, when Harry was deep into recording his first solo album and prepping for his first solo tour. That didn't change the fact that in Harry's head, he had one perfect night that was leading to something more, and then...it didn't.

Things were never the same between them again. It was hard, to want Nick so much and know that Nick had seen the possibility and decided he wanted something else. Or that maybe he hadn't even seen it, that Harry had made the whole thing up in his head. But Harry could have this, at least: Nick choosing to come here and spend time with him; Nick in his house, letting Harry take care of him the way Harry always wanted. Harry could pretend it was enough.

 

* * *

 

By the time Harry had finished his laps the next morning, Nick was stretched out on one of the sun loungers in nothing but swim shorts and sunglasses, his long, long legs crossed at the ankle. He had his phone resting next to him, screen black.

Harry had some of his equilibrium back, after dinner and a long evening of more silly telly and a good night's sleep. But he still felt raw seeing Nick.

"Are you wearing sun cream?" Harry said, for want of something more interesting to say.

Nick groaned and threw one arm over his forehead. Typical.

Harry climbed up onto one of the lilos and laid himself out. He was going to get back in the pool in a bit, but he could cool down from the workout in that weird meandering way that floating always made him feel. He wasn't sure how long he floated before a sudden burst of tinny music made him jump and almost roll off the lilo. He righted himself to a soundtrack of Nick's laughter.

"Sorry," Nick said, still chuckling, when Harry was stable enough to glare. "Autoplay video." He waved his phone.

"There are better ways to kill me," Harry said.

Nick put his phone down on his stomach. "Mmm. I'm sure. I could cut your long, flowin' locks, so you're no longer invincible."

"Hey."

"It's more fun to watch you almost fall into the pool, though." The fond smile on his face was well-known to Harry, familiar from every clumsy thing he'd done over the years. 

He couldn't take it, suddenly, any longer. Not after last night; not after the reminder that Nick not only didn't want Harry, he definitely did want someone else. Harry grabbed the side of the lilo with his opposite hand and hauled it over, so he half-slid half-crashed off of it back into the pool. He could hear Nick laughing maniacally as he ducked under the water and then resurfaced, swimming over to the edge in a few strokes that stretched his muscles satisfyingly. The water was enough to help him shake the mood off, to get his equilibrium again. "Something like that?" he said, shaking the water out of his hair.

"Perfect!" Nick said with a toothy grin.

"Thanks." Harry turned and did a few more laps, then some lazy half-floating to finish cooling down, and then pushed himself up out of the pool and walked over to his towel. Even behind the sunglasses, Harry knew Nick was looking. He always looked. Harry towelled himself off—making sure to shake his hair out again, and spray Nick with it, because his fake-offended cries were one of Harry's favourite sounds—and then dropped onto one of the other sun loungers to enjoy the day.

Half an hour later, Harry stood up. "Okay, that's enough."

"Enough what?" Nick said, distractedly, over his phone.

Harry clapped a cold palmful of sun cream onto Nick's belly. Nick yelped and tried to scoot away, but Harry was prepared and had him well-pinned by his shoulder before he could move far. "You're not getting skin cancer if I can help it," Harry said, smoothing the cream into his skin.

"Excuse me, you're the color of burnt toast."

"Excuse you, I have a healthy glow." Harry went over Nick's nipples as quickly and clinically as he could. Nick really should be wearing sun cream, and Harry would take the excuse to touch him; maybe it would bleed off the worst of what he was feeling. "Burning is bad. I gave you half an hour."

Nick huffed a breath through his nose, not quite a snort. "What's the point in coming to LA if I'm going to go home as pasty as I was when I arrived?"

"I hope seeing me has something to do with it."

"Yeah, fine," Nick said, waving a hand in the air. He didn't say anything else. Harry moved onto his arms, which he needed both hands for, but Nick seemed to have given up his protests, so it wasn't so bad. Like giving a massage. He worked the sun cream into Nick's hand, then drizzled some more on Nick's other arm and rubbed that in, too. It was an easy thing to concentrate on, making sure he'd got every bit of revealed skin, between Nick's fingers and in the soft crooks of his elbows and around the tips of his collarbone poking out of his shoulders. Hypnotic.

If he licked Nick's belly right now it would taste like sun cream. Harry thought about getting down on his knees and sucking Nick's cock. He'd done it with other guys before, on this very poolside in fact, but he imagined it would be better with Nick. Everything was better with Nick. But he couldn't have that, and he shouldn't think it. Harry picked up the sun cream and glanced up at Nick's face, ready to start in on his cheekbones. 

Nick was wearing the strangest expression, eyes huge and mouth pinched shut. He looked startled when Harry's eyes met his, and Harry was suddenly conscious of what this must look like from Nick's side: plausibly a joke when he'd started on Nick's belly, but far past the line of acceptability by the time he was rubbing his hands all over Nick's body in total silence for a couple of minutes. 

He couldn't let Nick's face get sunburned, though. Harry finally reached out to dab a few spots of white onto Nick's cheeks and a particularly large dollop onto the end of Nick's nose. Nick's expression relaxed into something more normal, and he crossed his eyes trying to watch as Harry rubbed it in. 

His big, beloved face.

Harry loved him so much.

He usually tried not to look at it head-on, because it was too big and too painful. He was in love with Nick, hopelessly, totally, forever in love with him. He could go about his life, date other people, make a home for himself in LA, and if Nick said one word Harry would drop everything to be his. It was just as well that Nick would never ask.

"You can do your legs, right?" Harry said. He pressed the tube of sun cream onto Nick's stomach, and Nick reached up and grabbed it, still silent. Harry retreated to his own sun lounger. His hands were tingling. "I'm watching you, Grimshaw, you better do it well."

"You're an odd bloody child," Nick said under his breath.

"And if you roll over I'm doing your back!"

Nick waved him off and went to work. He had a tiny little smear of white stuck in his chest hair, where Harry hadn't rubbed the sun cream in well enough. Harry had the lingering feeling that he'd done something very, very wrong, but he had no idea how to take it back.

 

* * *

 

He dragged Nick out for a run that evening: too much TV yesterday had him feeling lethargic and overstuffed, and between that and his mistake of the morning, he needed to get out and move around, more than he could on his own property. 

"Aren't we supposed to do this in the morning, to jumpstart our metabolisms or whatever?" Nick said as they turned off Harry's road onto one that wound faster uphill.

"You were tanning," Harry said.

"You were in the pool."

"Can run after I swim."

"Can't," Nick said. "Dangerous to my health. All that chlorine mixing with your sweat, I'd die if I smelled you."

"Hey." A block on, Harry added, "It's a salt water pool."

"Huh. When did you change it?"

"I didn't."

"I've definitely smelt of chlorine after I've gone swimming in it before."

"Nope," Harry said. "Salt water." The nice thing about old friends was that he could call them idiots more or less and still know they'd like him, and vice versa. 

The bad thing about old friends was when you were in love with them and they were in love with someone else, but there wasn't anything he could do about that, really.

They rounded a curve and turned onto another street, one with a few very beautiful houses close enough to the road to be seen. It always made Harry wonder what the ones he couldn't see looked like. 

"Salt water pool. I wonder what else is subtly different?" Nick said. "Is this an alternate reality? Has one of your tattoos moved?"

"What tattoos?" Harry said.

Nick actually looked over as if there was a chance Harry'd lost them all in the last minute or so. Harry gave him his best shit-eating grin, and Nick rolled his eyes fondly.

"This your usual route?" Nick said, once they'd been running in silence for a few minutes. 

"Yeah. 'S pretty."

"Nothing like England."

"No." Harry heard what Nick wasn't saying—maybe not even what he was thinking, but Harry was thinking it. Is this why Harry was here instead of in London? Is this what Harry picked instead of them? It wasn't nearly that simple, but that didn't mean Harry didn't feel guilty about it when he thought about what life might be like if he could see Nick all the time, instead of every few months. Would things be worse or better if he saw Nick that often? More in love or less? Would Nick feel differently about him? He thought about it sometimes. Wondered if Nick had felt those same stirrings, those last few months. If Harry had broken Nick's heart when he left. He tried not to, because that made it worse. By turns he sure that Nick had never felt anything but friendship, and then that Nick had loved Harry and Harry had rejected him by leaving; that Nick knew how Harry felt and pretended he didn't for the sake of their friendship, or that Nick knew nothing about it and thought Harry was as friendly as ever. If he could only get it straight in his head, Harry thought, maybe it wouldn't hurt so much. Or maybe it would hurt worse, depending on what the answer was. He wasn't even sure if he knew which one would be easiest. "There's a house up here I like," he said, instead of any of that. "I keep an eye on it, in case it goes on the market."

"Harry Styles, estate agent," Nick said. "I always thought you needed a different career."

Harry gestured up at the house, which was starting to reveal itself around the curve of the road. "Here we've got a lovely twenty-bedroom house in traditional adobe style updated for the modern age. Only one bathroom though, might need a renovation there. Custom infinity pool on the back patio area, movie viewing room, walk-in closets with built-in shelving and unique hat chandelier. Authentic 1950s kitchen with lots of horrid vinyl crap that we're going to pretend is charming and antique."

"What, fifties?" Nick said, voice rising on a squeak.

Offended, Harry said, "That's what you're going to object to? I've been working on this masterpiece for ages. Twenty bedrooms! One bathroom! Hat chandelier!"

"Didn't seem that weird."

Harry frowned at him, and Nick did a scrunchy face back, sort of like he was mocking Harry. Well, not _like_ that: it was exactly what he was doing. Making light, as he did. Harry could use that right now. Nick's teasing, Nick's care, they were little nuts of affection that Harry hoarded against the winter of Nick's absence. He was grateful to have them after the mistake that morning. He'd have to work harder to make sure he didn't do it again.

 

* * *

 

A little after midnight, the door to Harry's room cracked open. He was still awake. Insomnia wasn't usually one of his vices, but he was all tangled up in his head, the phone call last night and Nick under his hands that morning. He wasn't sure how to make anything sensible out of it all.

"I'm awake," Harry said quietly, and the door opened and then closed again behind Nick. Harry turned on the lamp so Nick could see on his way over.

"Hiya." Nick came over to the far side of the bed, and then paused. "Um."

"Yeah, come in, you're always welcome." 

Nick didn't say anything to that, but he peeled back the quilt and slid underneath. He laid down flat on his back and looked at the ceiling, silent.

"Everything all right?" Harry said finally, as gently as he could.

"I broke up with David."

Harry swallowed, heart racing, hands wanting to clutch at Nick. He was happy, and he hated that he felt happy, and he didn't know what to say. He finally settled on, "I'm sorry to hear that."

Nick rubbed his mouth.

"Do you want to talk about what happened?"

"Whatever happens," Nick said. "It was boring, I hated it."

"Okay," Harry said.

"Just, like—it wasn't going anywhere. I kept thinking it might, but it wasn't, and then, like." He swallowed. "He found somebody else. So."

"Oh, babe." 

"Nice to know some things don't change. LA's sunny, you're the nicest person I've ever met, I'm shit at relationships."

Harry scooted closer on the bed. "You're not shit. It's hard, right? Making it work with other people."

Nick turned his head on the pillow to look at Harry. "I do all right with friendships."

"'S different, though."

"I guess so." Nick rolled up onto his side facing Harry. "I really wanted this one to work."

"He doesn't deserve you, if he thinks anyone else could be better." Shit, that was a little too close to the bone. But it could probably pass as Harry being a supportive friend.

"Then I've had a string of men who didn't deserve me."

"Yep."

Nick smiled a little. 

"Always at work, David, right?"

Nick nodded.

"And you work a lot too—so do I, we love it, right—but you can also let it go and have fun. Not as much as you should, but you do. You should have somebody who can do that too. Plus you're way hotter than him." Harry didn't exactly remember what David looked like, but it didn't matter: Nick was hotter.

An outright laugh at that one. "He has a big dick, though."

"Too much information," Harry said lightly, and Nick smirked. "So, like. I know this part is hard, but we'll find you someone else, someone good, okay?" 

" _We_? Okay," Nick said. "I'm putting you in charge of my matchmaking, Harry Styles. Then I can blame all my failings on you." He wasn't smiling, but he looked less like his face was about to collapse in pain. That was better; sad Nick made Harry feel like someone was pulling his heart out of his chest with dental floss.

"Do you want to go out to WeHo some night this week? There are lots of pretty boys there."

"Oh, not yet. Maybe next time you're back in London?"

Probably too soon for anything but a rebound. "Yeah, cool." 

Nick resettled himself on the pillow. "Sorry to be a wet blanket."

"No, I don't mind." 

"My boring relationship problems." He laughed, not happily, and Harry hurt for him again. "I've got relationship problems! Oh, I miss my twenties."

"In your twenties you mostly didn't know me, though, so they must've been terrible." Harry smiled, hoping the flirting would lift Nick's mood, and got a faint laugh in reward.

"Absolutely awful."

"The problem was mostly him, anyway."

"I don't think so, but thanks."

Gathering steam, Harry said, "It's not your fault. What an arsehole, to wait until you're here on holiday—a holiday he cancelled on!—to break up with you."

"Er," Nick said. "No. This was—sorry, it happened weeks ago. I didn't want to admit it." 

After a moment, Harry said, "Oh." He couldn't reconcile that with—anything, really. He felt at sea. Surely that was the kind of thing he should have noticed? He started running through every interaction they'd had this week. Had Nick given it away somehow and Harry hadn't picked up on it?

Nick rubbed his eyes, hiding his face. "I didn't want to, like. Think about it. I just wanted to have fun with you whilst I'm here." He sighed out hard through his nose and put his hands back down, giving Harry a good view of the awful frown on his face. "I guess I failed at that."

"We've been having fun. Haven't we?"

"Yeah." Nick quirked a small sad smile at him. "You've helped keep my mind off it. Thanks."

Harry nodded, watching Nick's face. It was an endless source of fascination for him, the different expressions—he knew every one of them, but Harry always got a jolt of anticipation waiting to see which one would come up next. When they were on the phone together, he'd often try to picture what Nick's face was doing, mobile and malleable and so familiar, so loved.

Phones. Before Harry could think it through, he said, "But—I heard you the other night. Saying I love you." Shit, he thought, as soon as it was out of his mouth. Probably he'd been trying to get David back, and Harry had reminded him of another failure.

Nick didn't react like that was the reason, though. He frowned, and then chuckled. "Last night?"

Was it only last night? "Yes," Harry said.

"I was FaceTiming with Aimee, and she showed the phone to Pig."

That startled a laugh out of Harry.

"Do you think that's how I talk to my boyfriends? _How's my widdle David, yeeeeees, he's such a good boy_ ," Nick said in a high-pitched childlike voice. "Because that's not my style. I like dogs, but not _that_ much!"

Harry hit him on the shoulder. "Hey! I didn't listen for long, it sounded private."

"Where's my mobile—" Nick sat up, looking all around him. "Damn, I must've left it in my room. I'll have to wait till the morning to text Aimee that you think Pig and I are an item. Who else needs to hear this? Gillian, Henry, the entirely of One Direction, Dan Wootton—"

"God. Why am I friends with you!"

"Aw." Nick's expression was soft. "Just turned out that way, I guess. You're very lucky to have me."

Harry nodded seriously. "I am. And David was very lucky to have you, too, and if I see him again I'm going to hit him on the arm and tell him so."

"Thanks." 

"Welcome."

Harry leaned over to give Nick a hug. They were both barechested, and everywhere their skin touched it was like electricity, making Harry light up, waking little channels of pleasure all over him. He was long past stopping things with Nick when they made him feel too much, though, so he clung to Nick and let everything wash over him.

"I'm so glad you're still such a fucking decent human," Nick said, muffled by Harry's hair. "Fame hasn't ruined you at all, has it?"

"Maybe I was already ruined before you met me."

"I don't believe it for a second." Nick squeezed him tighter, then let him go, and regretfully Harry pulled back to his side of the bed.

He hardly had to ask the question to know the answer, but he knew Nick would like the formal invitation. "Do you want to sleep in here tonight?"

"Yeah, if you don't mind?"

"Of course not. Um—you ready to sleep now?"

"I think so, yeah."

"All right." Harry reached back and switched off the lamp again. It didn't seem quite right to cut the conversation off, so he added, "Thanks for telling me."

"Of course. Thanks for being, like, understanding and stuff."

"Yeah, course." He was silent for a few minutes, listening to Nick's breathing deepen, maybe not as fast as normal. "Do you want to hold my hand?" Harry said, letting laughter come into his voice.

"Oh, fuck off," Nick said. "Keep those giant paws on your side of the bed." He sounded sleepy already, gravelly and slow, and Harry let the tone of it sink into him, making it part of him, how Nick sounded falling asleep safe in Harry's bed.

"Night," Harry said.

"Gnight," Nick said unclearly back.

It almost didn't seem real, that everything could have happened in both their lives and Nick still ended up on the spare pillow in Harry's bed.

Harry lay awake for a while, thinking back over the week. He thought that there had been signs: Nick never talked about his boyfriends much to Harry but David had been significantly absent even for that. There was the slight mania, Nick with just a little too much energy. And Harry usually relied on Nick to stop the flirting before it got too far—he was usually the one dating someone, at least lately—and perhaps that had gone farther than usual, too. Especially the sun cream incident. 

In fact...in fact, with anyone else, Harry thought he would have invited Nick to bed already, because he'd seemed so clearly interested. He and Nick had always flirted, but Nick broke up with David and chose to come here, to Harry. Hope started to burn bright in his chest, unfurling until it was taking him over, huge, and he made that a part of him too: that Nick might want Harry the same way Harry wanted Nick, at the same time, in a way Harry had thought he'd lost before he even knew how precious it was. 

It was intolerable, suddenly, that Nick wasn't awake, that Harry would have to wait until morning to figure out if he was right. So, like he had as a child waiting for Christmas morning, he took the fast-forward available to him, quieted his mind and slipped into sleep.

 

* * *

 

Harry blinked slowly awake in the morning light.

Nick was still in bed with him. Harry was on his back, but Nick was on his side with his face towards Harry. Harry rolled to match him, so they were facing each other, curled like two apostrophes with their knees almost touching. Nick looked lovely in the early light, careless and rumpled. They both had meetings today, Harry knew, and he couldn't have the long morning in bed he wanted; but, first, he could have this.

Harry was half-hard, and it felt good, to lie here in bed with Nick, turned on but not urgent about it. Nick had his hands tucked up under his chin like a squirrel. Harry wished he had his camera, since his phone wouldn't do it justice. Possibility was running smooth over his whole skin, like maybe he was about to get it right.

Nick inhaled suddenly, shifting his shoulders, and Harry held his breath: this was it, the moment when he'd know. Nick blinked awake, met Harry's eyes, and smiled; and Harry thought, _Yes,_ like a bolt unlocking, every bit of him falling into place.

"Morning," Harry said. He wondered if he was glowing to match the window. He wasn't sure he'd ever felt this happy all at one time.

"Morning." Nick settled his face into the pillow and closed his eyes again. "Time's it?"

"Dunno. Not too early." 

Nick hummed, muffled by fabric. 

Harry had been wrong; this was better than any Christmas morning he'd ever had. "How are you feeling today?" he said happily.

"Like I want to go back to sleep," Nick said. Or at least Harry thought he said that. It was hard to tell with the way he was half enveloped by the pillow.

"I don't remember you being this awful in the morning."

That got a head raise. "I don't remember you being this chipper in the morning," Nick said, glaring, but Harry knew him well enough to tell joke glares from real glares, and he thought Nick was as happy as he was. Nick's expression shifted, though, suddenly—"Nine fifteen," he said, scandalised.

"Didn't think it was that early," Harry said.

"No, I have a meeting at eleven." Nick hesitated, blinking at Harry. Then he rolled out of bed, and the moment was broken, Harry left frowning as the fairytale mood shattered around him. Well, he'd known it was coming. "I should be done by, like, three though?"

"I've band rehearsal in the afternoon. Um—I could go make breakfast whilst you get ready?"

"Yeah, thanks." Nick hesitated again at the door, but then he left before he said whatever he'd thought of saying.

As the smoothies were blending, Harry pulled up his calendar on his phone. Eleven a.m. meeting for Nick today, and Harry's rehearsal in the afternoon, as he'd remembered. And then the beach house party tonight, fuck. Could he cancel on that? Was that presumptuous of him?

Nick came down not too much time later, packaged up into Nick The Presenter again. Harry passed Nick's breakfast over and said, "I like that shirt," because he did.

"Thanks! Fully armoured for the dragon's den." Nick took a sip and made his customary "that's disgusting" face. "Plus, I can stick this one in the dryer, and I'm having lunch with Lucy from Fox—you know how she always knocks something over. I've got a spare in me bag for the later meetings just in case."

The last time Harry had had lunch with Lucy from Fox, they'd almost given up and had a food fight, on the theory that it might result in less spilling. He wasn't that bad with dishes, usually, and he had fast reflexes, but somehow her clumsiness was contagious for Harry. He often picked up little habits from the people he was hanging around with, but that had been extreme. "Very sensible of you."

Nick rolled his eyes. "Don't take the piss, I'm being very proactive."

"I wasn't." Harry frowned at him.

"Ah—right, sorry." Nick took another sip of his drink. Funny how people got ideas of you and didn't let them go. Nick had been perfectly capable of taking care of himself for years, but to most of his friends he was still the slightly childish one, and still seemed to expect jibes about it. For a while, in fact, Harry had wondered if that was why Nick liked him, since everyone had more adult skills than he did when he was seventeen. But it had never bothered Harry; Nick was careful and attentive with other people's feelings, and that was far more important to him than whether Nick had remembered to put the laundry out for the laundry service or whatever Henry was teasing him about this week.

"Can you handle dinner by yourself?" Harry forced himself to say. He wanted to cut out early, but it wasn't too much longer before the tour, and they needed to keep in practice.

Nick smiled at him. "Been doing it for years."

"I meant, do you need help setting anything up? You can use the car service or take one of the cars, if you want. Or there's stuff in if you want to cook." Nick raised his eyebrows. "Maybe you took up cookery, I don't know," Harry said.

"Yeah, I'm good. Thanks."

"And then Jeff invited us to that beach party later."

Nick perked up. "Oh yeah, I'd love to catch up with him!"

So much for the cancelling plan. Harry nodded. "Cool. That's the day, then."

"Very responsible of us." Nick flicked a smile at him and slurped the last bit of his smoothie obnoxiously. "I'll see you after dinner, rock star." He ruffled Harry's hair on his way out the door, Harry's "Bye" trailing him into the garage.

 

* * *

 

The drive to the coast took longer than Harry thought—he had to learn to trust his satnav. They made it while it was still a bit light out, though, and wandered round back where everyone was drinking beer and eating hamburgers and hot dogs. "I feel proper American right now," Nick said into Harry's ear as they did a quick circuit, checking in with people Harry knew. "I think I'm going to start putting ice in things now. Does beer get ice?"

"No," Harry said, revolted and not bothering to hide it.

"This is important research. No need to get prissy."

After that, Harry didn't trust Nick with the beer—he might try it for laughs—so Harry went over to the cooler whilst Nick grazed at the food table. There were some good microbrews, but also an array of bottles of cheaper stuff, and Harry debated if Miller Lite or Corona would give Nick the better American flavour for his meal. He settled on the Corona and wound his way to where Nick had been waylaid by Jeff and Glenne.

Nick passed Harry a plate and took a bottle in trade without paying attention. "And we looked out the window and there was a dog in the yard," he was saying, and Harry leaned back against the deck railing watching him: animated, alight, hands trying to gesture even though they were full. 

"...took a massive shit," Harry mouthed along with the story. Glenne caught him and bit back a smile, which made Nick turn and look at him suspiciously. Harry grinned and took a big bite of hamburger.

It wasn't that he didn't love talking to Jeff and Glenne—they were some of his best friends in the world, more like family. But every minute he stood there chatting, he was wishing more and more that he'd cancelled after all. The certainty of the morning had drained away; there was just enough left to make Harry bold, to make him need to know, because there was a chance where he'd thought there was no chance before. If they'd been at home, they could be talking about it already, and Harry would know for sure, one way or another.

He didn't think he was imagining that Nick was standing closer to him than he had been earlier in the week. But he couldn't rule out that it was wishful thinking. Nick had been friendly and nothing more when Harry got home and changed before the party, and it hadn't seemed to occur to him that they could choose not to go. 

"Last one of these before we lose you on tour, isn't it?" Glenne said to Harry when Nick's story was finished.

"It's only three months this time," Harry said, to a chorus of protests from all three of them. "That's nothing for an international tour!" Two months in America, two weeks in the UK, two weeks in Europe. He might do a month or so in Asia in the fall, but nothing was finalized yet.

Jeff shook his head. "That's about the same length as a semester. One of these days you should lie and go off to college instead. We wouldn't be able to tell the difference until you came back quoting Proust."

"He does that anyway," Nick said.

Harry tried to picture going to uni. He'd be older than everyone. Most of the girls would have been fans of him (or deliberately anti-fans of him) when they were teenagers. And he wasn't sure what he'd study; he didn't know what he'd want to do, other than sing, and that was already his job. He could learn anything he wanted to on his own.

Into the brief pause in the conversation, Nick said, "I didn't finish uni, and I think I turned out all right."

Harry let the silence linger on just enough and then said, contemplatively, "Maybe I _should_ go." He smiled as everyone laughed.

It was a good party: lots of industry types but mostly from the business side, so it was low-key, cookout on the deck as the sun set and then lounging on the sand close to the house, amongst burning mosquito lanterns. Harry knew about half the people there. He nursed his lone beer, wanting to stay clear-headed, ready to remember every minute of this. He had to talk to Nick tonight. It might burn everything down, but he had to try. He just had to get through the socialising first.

Nick worked the party like he always did. Harry got caught up in some business conversations so he wasn't always next to him, but he could always tell where Nick was by the interested faces and bright laughter. Harry remembered feeling like that when he'd first met Nick: this happy, funny person that made you want to be friends with him. Harry couldn't regret his choice to get to know him, whatever happened tonight.

He drifted out of a conversation with some A&R people and back into Nick's orbit. Nick smiled at him, soft, the way he did when Harry came up unexpectedly. For the first time Harry allowed himself to believe that that meant something. "Harry here's been thinking about getting into property," Nick said to the group; they must have been discussing it before he showed up. "Haven't you?"

"I just like looking at houses," Harry said.

"What do you think?" a dark-haired woman said, gesturing back to the house. The homeowner, then. Harry vaguely remembered her, though not her name.

Harry stared at the deck, trying to seem like he was actually inspecting things. A glance at Nick told him Nick wasn't fooled, but he didn't give Harry away, either. "It's nice," he said. "Good outdoor spaces."

The woman smiled at him. "We had the deck upgraded when we moved in, and we added the pool." Harry hadn't seen the pool—it must be around the other side of the house. "We loved the view, so we wanted to enjoy it as much as possible."

"Yes, it's lovely," Harry said. Right, they had the whole beach, not just the little fenced-in area by the house. If he wanted some privacy, if he didn't want to wait until they got home, he could take Nick down there.

The woman started to describe the renovations to the kitchen, and that was ordinarily the kind of thing Harry would be interested in, but he had Nick right there and he had a place to go. "Wanna take a walk down by the water?" he said quietly into Nick's ear during a lull.

"Yeah." Nick set his beer down and raised his eyebrows. Waiting for Harry to start, then.

He could do that.

The night was bright, almost a full moon, and light was spilling from the house and the lanterns, so they could see where they were going, more or less, as they passed through the gate and down onto the beach itself. "Maybe I should get a house by the water," Harry said. 

Also, sometimes he wanted to delay before he bared his soul. Get away from the crowd. That kind of thing.

"I was joking about the estate agent sideline," Nick said.

"Yes, but I like the beach."

"Your pool's pretty good." They were getting further away now, the rushing sound of the waves as loud as the drifting voices from the party. "But you're right, this is a proper beach." Nick scuffed his feet in the sand. "I always forget there's a beach by where you live now, instead of rocks and a bit of boardwalk."

"There's sand in England." But even as he said it, Harry knew just what Nick meant. "You wanna get your feet wet?"

"Mmm," Nick said, with a downward curl. So no. "It's dark, I'm afraid I'll step on a jellyfish or summat."

"You can do that in the light, too. Some of them are see-through."

Nick shuddered. "No thanks."

"Okay."

"Um, about the thing we were talking about last night." That probably wasn't clear enough. "Me finding you a boyfriend."

"Yeah?" Nick said, lightly. It was a tell, but Harry didn't know which kind. No matter what, he wouldn't be joking about this; the question was what emotion he was trying to hide.

"I pick me."

Nick stopped dead. "What?"

"If you want to," said Harry. He could feel his pulse everywhere, temples, wrists, back of his knees.

"Of course I," Nick said, sounding strangled before it died off in his throat. 

Stepping forward, Harry kissed him. Nick's arms came up around him instantly, and Harry kept leaning forward into him, into his mouth, until Nick lost his footing and they both went down onto the sand in an awkward slow-motion double fall.

"Ow!" Nick said, laughing, and tugged Harry over so they didn't have to stop. They kissed in waves, little surges that made Harry open his mouth further each time. The ocean coming in to land. He always came back to Nick, like the tides. Nick always came back to him that way, too. Harry should have realised earlier, what this was, what it could be. He could feel Nick under him and against him, and he wanted to do everything at once, and he wanted to do nothing but this for the rest of his life.

The kisses died off, as Harry knew they would, and he was left braced on Nick's chest, staring at him, wishing he could see more than a dark smudge against the lighter colour of the sand. Then everything he'd been pushing down came back up to choke him. Harry buried his face in the open neck of Nick's shirt, unbuttoned halfway down. It was nice there: warm and dark and it smelled so much of Nick. Nick's fingers were combing through his hair, slowly, soothingly. "It's all right," he said, a whisper that Harry could barely hear.

"I'm just," Harry said. He sighed out a breath; it was shaky, he was shaking. "I love you. Nick, I love you so much." Too soon to say it, but he couldn't help himself. If Nick wasn't ready for that, Harry wasn't sure he could wait any longer.

"Yeah." Nick coughed. "I love you too." He didn't stop his fingers. It wasn't an automatic thing that he'd said, a robotic reply. Harry could tell. It felt like it did when Harry said it, like it came from his whole body, blood and bone, every cell singing. Hearing it felt better than Harry could ever have imagined, and it helped him settle even more than Nick's touch did. He'd always known it to be true, and at the same time he'd never believed it. 

He kissed the skin of Nick's collarbone, under his lips, and then lifted his head so he could look up at the bottom of Nick's chin. He couldn't see it, but he knew what it looked like.

"When you moved out here for good," said Nick, "I thought I'd missed my chance."

Harry ached. "No." They'd have to talk about it, he knew. Distance and choices. But please, not in this moment. Not when they were in the same place, and Harry could talk with air that had just been in Nick's lungs too.

"Good." Nick tucked his fingers into the back pocket of Harry's jeans. "I have for a while. Um. Been in love with you."

"Same, yeah."

Nick rolled them both over. "We're a couple of bleedin' idiots," he said, voice rough. Harry's breath caught in his throat on a laugh, but he didn't need it, because Nick was kissing him again, and that was better than air.

Against Nick's lips, Harry said, "Can we stop being idiots now?"

"Probably not, but we can try."

He laughed hard enough that time that Nick had to stop kissing him. "I really wish we'd cancelled," he said, rocking up against Nick's body. Not hard yet, but he could be easily.

"You'll have to wait a bit longer to have your wicked way with me."

"I'll have you know I've been told I'm as pure as snow."

"By who?" Nick said dubiously.

No need to get into that story. He kissed Nick instead. He couldn't remember the last time he'd so enjoyed just making out with someone. But then, he always enjoyed everything with Nick.

Eventually they managed to separate long enough to sit back up and start putting themselves to rights as well as they could in the darkness. "They're all going to think we had sex out here," Nick said, tugging his shirt back into place. "At least they don't seem the kind to judge."

"Um."

Nick laughed. "Not the first time?" he said knowingly, and Harry leaned his head against Nick's shoulder. "That's my boy."

They walked back up to the noise and the light of the party. As he'd expected, Harry was covered in sand, flushed warm and clumsy and happy, and his clothing was all askew where he couldn't quite fix it. But nobody said anything. Glenne smiled indulgently at him, though, so it wasn't that he'd successfully hidden it so much as everyone else had decided not to mention it. That was perfect; he needed some time for this to be less raw before he could tell anybody without feeling like he'd cracked his chest open.

Besides, if somebody put a name to it, Harry had a feeling he'd grab Nick's hand and drag him off to the car, politeness be damned.

 

* * *

 

Once they got home, Harry didn't wait till they made it to the bedroom to kiss Nick again. Nick wanted him back, and he needed that feeling again. 

They kissed, more gently than Harry had imagined it. They weren't pinning each other to the wall or trying to climb up each other's bodies, just standing there in the dimly-lit foyer, pressed close, moving slowly, mouths together. He had Nick's fingers twined through his, as he had, on and off, since they'd gotten in the car. Unbelieving, still, almost, that Nick was his.

Harry let his other hand slip to Nick's waist, tucked it under the hem of his shirt to feel the soft skin there. Nick responded by nuzzling against the side of Harry's face and breathing out hard enough to move the hair by his ear, where it had dried funny after they'd used the outdoor shower at the beach house—they'd got rid of the worst of the sand, at least, before driving home. One at a time, because Harry hadn't trusted himself with a wet, naked Nick, even under cold water. 

"Can I take you to the bedroom?" Nick said quietly.

The whole world felt hushed, listening for Harry's answer, as though he could say anything other than, "Please."

Nick led the way up the stairs, pulling Harry along by the hand, after a few more kisses for good measure. Harry managed to lose his shirt on the way, but he had to strip Nick's off him once they were upstairs. Nick had a little grin on his face when his head emerged from the fabric, like Harry's impatience was funny. "As I recall, you were feeling me up not two days ago," Nick said. "Why d'you need to get me naked so fast?"

"If you had a view like this, you'd know," Harry said, shamelessly letting his eyes run over Nick's chest and arms, and Nick's mouth twisted into something else before he said, "I do."

Nothing to do there but kiss him again, then, and then drag him onto the bed and do it yet again. Nick was a bit of a biter, which Harry hadn't expected, but otherwise it was as sweet and soft as it had been downstairs. Taking their time, or maybe nerves in its own way: worried about what was coming next. He let his hand wander experimentally under the waistband of Nick's jeans, and Nick pulled in a quick breath and pressed up against him, half-hard. So. Good. Harry got his knee between Nick's and it was easier to think of the next thing when he was rubbing off against Nick's upper thigh.

Nick's big hand slipped down his stomach, maybe tracing the edges of Harry's stomach muscles before he flattened his fingers against skin and slid down, down, down. And then laughed against Harry's mouth.

Harry drew back and blinked down at him. "Something funny about my dick?" he said, not able to prevent himself smiling.

"Haven't got to your dick yet. But, like. Today? Today is the day you chose to wear pants?"

Harry laughed too. "Think where the sand might've got if I hadn't."

"Hmmm," Nick said, letting his fingers drift lower. "Here?"

"Mmm. Maybe." Harry tried to rock into Nick's fingers at the base of his cock, but it was difficult, the touch light and braced against Harry's own stomach so Nick's hand moved with him. The extra width of his wrist was making Harry's jeans cut into his lower back.

Nick pushed with his hand so Harry moved away from him. Then his fingers were gone, and Harry rocked forward reflexively, chasing them, before he realized what was happening: Nick taking down the zip of his own jeans, then holding his cock against his belly as he pushed the rest of his clothing down and off.

And then Harry had a naked Nick in his bed. Long, lanky, hairy: just what Harry liked. Nipples tight, cock hard, because of Harry. He had to close his eyes for a moment and breathe. "Can I blow you?" he said, already moving to do it, but Nick stopped him with a hand on his chest. Harry blinked at him.

"Maybe later," Nick said. "I think...I think you've been waiting." Harry's cheeks heated as he realized what Nick meant. Not since the party, but...longer. And even though he had him now, it was strange, to think Nick knew that all that time— "And I'd like to, uh. I'd like to—here." Nick put a hand on Harry's shoulder and pushed him down onto the bed. He wasn't strong, exactly, not like Harry was, but there was power in him, a way of leveraging what bulk he had to get the results he wanted. Harry was happy to go, to lie on the soft mattress and feel warm and hard and needy.

Nick pressed a kiss to the centre of Harry's sternum, and Harry's heart kicked up, like it was trying to beat through his ribcage to touch Nick too.

He moved down, dragging his mouth over the same path his hand had taken, sucking a bruise into the thin skin above one of Harry's laurels whilst he undid the fastenings of Harry's clothes. Then down and off with everything, so Harry was as bare before him as Nick was now, as Harry had been when he'd said, "I pick me," and thought maybe the world would come crashing down around him. It hadn't, and he didn't know how to be anything other than grateful, with Nick's eyes shining up at him and Nick's hands on his hips and Nick's heart beating "I love you" in time with Harry's own.

He sucked on Harry's cock for a little while—"Hey, that's not fair," Harry said, and Nick somehow managed to look smug with a dick in his mouth—then moved back up his torso, licking, kissing, biting. Reverently, like maybe Nick was grateful too.

Finally he came to rest sprawled on top of Harry, his chin on his arm on Harry's chest. His mouth was red and Harry wanted to be kissing him again. He tried to urge Nick up with a hand in the short hair at the back of Nick's head, but Nick pushed into it and watched Harry's face.

"What d'you want to do," Harry said.

Nick turned his head to the side. "You like getting fucked," he said, hesitantly but not a question: they'd talked about it before, long conversations that wrapped around the way Harry felt for Nick and the uncertainty of whether Nick felt the same, and then the apparently mistaken certainty that he didn't.

"Yeah," Harry said, unsure if it needed an answer. 

"I'd like to do that for you."

"How altruistic."

Nick kissed his shoulder instead of replying, and Harry could feel his smile. Sexual compatibility. Harry had known. Not only the things they liked, though there was that as well; the same opinions about sex, and crushes too much like each other in one way or another, and that combination of electricity and comfort every time they touched. If he was honest, he hadn't been ready for it in London, though he'd thought he was; and he couldn't have expected Nick to wait longer than that, even though he wished he had.

Harry reached over to get the condoms and lube out. Behind him, Nick laughed. Harry frowned and rolled back, then saw what Nick was laughing at: their showers weren't quite sufficient, and the bed looked damp and a bit sandy. "It looks like I've been getting off with a mermaid," Harry said.

Nick pulled him to the other half of the bed, which was drier and hopefully less gritty. "Just to check," he said as he pressed Harry back against the bed again, "you don't wank off to that tattoo, do you?"

"Is it a dealbreaker if I do?" Harry said, trying to sound teasing.

"I want to make sure I get the dirty talk right." Nick was already slicking up his fingers, so Harry didn't feel the need to respond.

He didn't sleep with many people who were taller than him, and none with arms as long as Nick's, so he wasn't used to the way Nick was able to kiss him whilst fingering him open: one hand between his legs and inside Harry, the other braced behind Harry's neck to help hold him up for those endless kisses, like Nick couldn't get enough of him either. Harry had to spread his thighs to give Nick room to work and that was its own turn-on, making him complicit in the way Nick was taking him apart, unjointing his limbs, claiming his tongue and his heart for Nick's own. Harry didn't mind at all.

By the time Nick pressed inside him, they were twined together so tight Harry thought they'd never split apart. Legs around each other's, Harry's hands around Nick's sides and resting on his back, Nick clutching the bedsheets beneath Harry's shoulderblades. Nick couldn't get much leverage, but if that was the tradeoff for not letting him go, Harry was happy to make it. He wasn't sure what felt better, Nick's cock moving inside him or Nick's attention focussed wholly on him.

He didn't want it to end, so much frustrated desire finally given an outlet, so he rode the waves of it until he couldn't help slipping one hand down round his cock. Even then, though, he tried to delay, letting his hand rest loose until he was panting with it, barely holding back, squeezing rhythmically around Nick; until Nick drove forward harder than he had been, deep and perfect, and said, "Harry—Harry, come on," voice rough from breathing hard. He dragged one hand artlessly down Harry's chest and stomach and joined his fingers with Harry's. "Come _on_ , you first."

Harry sucked down a breath, another, and then tightened his thighs round Nick's hips and came between them, drawn out for ages, hardly a peak because he'd been so close for so long, just slow pulse after pulse that made Harry feel wrung-out and buzzing and slow.

Nick reared back like he was going to pull out and Harry tugged him back down, pulling his dry fingers through Nick's sweat-damp quiff. Nick got the message, fucking into him shallow and strong until he groaned quietly and his hipbones pressed hard into the meat of Harry's arse. He fell down onto Harry whilst he was still coming, heavy and sweaty and a bit disgusting, but Harry held him close, muscle and breath and bone of this man he loved and finally, finally had.

He could feel Nick's pulse racing as fast as his own. For this moment, at least, in the same place, and together.

 

* * *

 

Waking up in bed with Nick was just as good the second time, and then better because Harry could touch all he wanted. 

He left Nick in bed, still slow to wake up, and went downstairs to make the big American-style breakfast he'd had planned. Bacon and eggs on the stove, pancakes on the hot griddle, wearing the "Kiss the Cook" apron Nick had got him as a gag gift one year. (Strictly speaking, when he received it there had been tape over the "Cook" part with "Baker" written on it in permanent marker, but the tape had peeled off before too long.) He got out the butter and maple syrup whilst the final pancakes were cooking, made tea and coffee and poured out glasses of orange juice, and then took a few photos of the table for his own collection before he texted Nick that everything was ready.

Nick came downstairs in a soft oversized sweatshirt and his pajama bottoms, hair flat across his forehead. Harry loved him when he was effortlessly cool and stylish, sunglasses and jewelry and black skinnies, but he loved him like this too. Nick looked younger, blurry around the edges; even his smile was more childlike, smaller but squintier at the eyes. There was not a minute of his life that Harry would change, but he thought sometimes about what it would have been like to know Nick in uni or in his early scraping-by days in London. Harry knew the age difference meant he couldn't have been there, but sometimes, only when he thought about it, he hated every minute that Nick lived without him. 

Harry got a photo as Nick came into the room, and then another with his scrunched-up annoyed face. 

"Delete that!" Nick said, sliding into his seat.

"I like it." Harry clicked off the camera.

"Don't show anybody, then."

Harry smiled at him and trapped one of Nick's feet with his own. That got Nick smiling again, at least. _I've seen you naked now,_ Harry thought, hot satisfaction curling inside him.

"If I eat all of this I'm going to lie on your sofa in a food coma all day," Nick said, though he was already reaching for the butter.

Harry pulled a few slices of bacon onto his plate. "That's the plan."

At the first bite of pancake Nick positively moaned. Harry compared it to his sex moans, and then got a nice little buzz from daydreaming about the fact that he had an actual sex moan comparison sample now, and then ate some bacon.

"Do Americans eat like this every day, then?" 

Harry swallowed. "I don't think so."

"That's a shame. I was hoping this would be a regular feature."

"I've cooked this for you every time you've come," Harry said.

"Yes, but I'll be coming here more often now, won't I," Nick said. It wasn't a question, but he didn't look up from his plate.

"I hope so, yeah."

Nick didn't move his head, but met Harry's eyes from under his lashes with a little smile.

"You've already broken your pattern so it just makes sense," said Harry, smirking.

"You know, I looked that up, and you're wrong."

Harry frowned. "What?"

"'S not every eighteen months." Nick pulled out his phone and read, "April 2015, December 2016, that's 20 months, February 2018, 14, and then August 2019, that's 18. And December and February are, like, winter, not fall and spring."

"Close enough," Harry said.

"Fourteen months! That's like a year."

"Plus two months."

"Oh my God," Nick said, laughing.

Nervous suddenly, Harry said, "How often should we be aiming for, d'you think?"

"At least once per month," Nick said. He responded faster than Harry would have guessed; he must have been thinking, too.

"Okay. So...you can come here once every three or four months, and I can go to London the rest of the time. I know you have to be around for filming."

"And you don't have to be around for, er, music-ing?" 

Harry frowned at him, and Nick smirked before he took another bite of pancake. He knew the proper words. Silly man. "Not when I'm touring," Harry said, "but otherwise I can live where I want. There are good recording studios in London, too, and people I can write with."

"I don't want to be long distance forever," Nick said.

Harry shook his head. "I don't either, but I think..." He shook his head again. "We should see where it goes. If I move right away for you, that's a lot of pressure too. So we should think about it more. We've been doing okay long-distance, right? Like, it never changed how I felt about you."

"It'll be harder."

He couldn't give up an opening like that. "It's already harder," he said, sliding his foot up Nick's leg.

Nick rolled his eyes. "At least let me finish my pancakes before you ravish me again."

"Okay," Harry said, and pouted until Nick reached over to mess with his hair in apology. "But long-distance is okay for a while?" He loved Nick, and he loved being in LA. If he had to choose he was choosing Nick, but he hoped he wouldn't have to make the choice, not yet.

Nick nodded. "Yes. And we could—I mean, it doesn't have to be London. Maybe. If I can get something here."

"Maybe," Harry said. But he knew it wasn't likely: he tried to imagine taking Nick out of London for more than a couple of weeks, and couldn't picture it at all. He thought he was okay with his time in LA being finite, though, if going back to London meant he had Nick. 

"And we've still got a few days here," Nick said.

"I'm sure we can make the best of them." Harry raised his eyebrows in a way that he thought could be either lascivious or just happy. Nick, of course, was always on Harry's level, and gave him a dirty smirk back. 

Perfect.

 

* * *

 

_Epilogue_

"Hiya, Harry Styles."

"I'm almost packed," Harry said. Only a few things left, like his phone and charger, that he'd be using until he left.

"Very prepared of you." There were the usual clicks and bangs from Nick's end—he couldn't sit still whilst they talked on the phone, and it was nearing evening there.

"You making tea?"

"Feeding the dog. Say hi to Harry, Pig! Pig, say hello to Harry! ...Sorry, she's eating."

Loudly, Harry said, "Hi Pig." Who knew if she could hear him or not.

"She's looking forward to seeing you," Nick said, over another suspicious bang. Harry itched to be there and help him do whatever it was he was doing. Soon.

"Just her?"

"Yeah, I can't be bothered." Nick was smiling, Harry knew.

"Are you still free to pick me up at the airport?"

"I feel like, after all this time, you shouldn't be so worried about travelling."

Harry chewed on his lip for a moment. "It's not the travel," he said. "I can get a cab. I just want to have the right countdown to when I get to see you again."

"Aw, how am I supposed to take the piss out of that?" Nick said, sounding pleased.

"You're not! You're supposed to tell me how wonderful I am and how much you miss me."

"You're wonderful and I miss you very much."

"Thank you, I really appreciate that."

"It's almost like I can read your mind."

Harry smiled. "As long as it's not mutual."

"Hey, what's wrong with my brain?"

"I don't know and I don't want to find out."

Nick huffed on the other end of the line. "I thought we were having a moment."

"We are," Harry said. "A moment where I affirm that I only want you for your body."

"Naw. Nope." 

Harry frowned. What—

"You're in big, messy, disgusting, creepy, cheesy love with me, and that's what's mutual. I want my moment. You're not getting out of this."

"Can we have it when I'm there?"

"Lots and lots. Let's see if we can make Fiona vomit."

"Cool," Harry said.

"Yeah. Hey, look, Aimee's coming over to distract me from worrying about you getting here, so I've got to order dinner. Can't wait till you're here, love."

"Me either," Harry said. "Love you."

"Love you too. See you soon."

"Bye."

"Bye! Bye bye bye." 

Harry texted _I love you ♥_ for good measure and then put his phone down. One more sleep until the plane. Like Christmas morning, every time. With much better gifts. More than a year of doing this, and he wasn't any less excited about it. Impulsively, he picked up his phone again and added one more text: _Maybe it's time to make the hellos longer than the goodbyes._ He frowned at it once he'd sent it. Not as clear as he'd thought when he first typed it. But he had a feeling Nick would know what he meant. 

Just before his flight, he got a single text from Nick: a string of all different sorts of heart emojis. Harry left the text alert on his phone the whole flight over, all the way until he was in Nick's arms again, and he had the real thing.


End file.
